To See and Feel the Divine
On the hillside outside the city, the Vestals encountered a humble man names Albinus, who was escaping in a cart with his family, along with other civilians, from a war. Even in danger, Albinus remembered what was due the goddess, and felt the impiety of riding with his family while priestesses walked, carrying their sacred objects. Leaving his family for a time he took the Vestals and their precious burdens all the way to safety in Caere.
--Roman author Livy
It honored Vesta, the fire goddess who was never depicted in human form because she was embodied in the flames themselves.
Symbols...
Do we as humans require symbols in order to relate to complex concepts? This is the question I found myself facing as I read today's meditation.
The conclusion I came to was a reluctant yes. Especially when it came to religion nad religious concepts. We find that most religions have some kind of symbol with which we identify them... the cross for Christianity, the Crescent for Islam, the Star of David for Judaism to name but three... and through those symbols we access a shared understanding of what it means to 'belong' to each and any of those faiths, (even when that understanding is not necessarily a prositive one).
Then we have the images we relate to as being representative of 'God' (or the gods in the case of polytheistic faiths, including paganism). Those images take many forms, granted, but the majority of people, if you say 'God' to them (or name a god), will more than likey see in their mind some kind of image which allows them to access their understanding of divinity. Sure it might not be the 'old man with a long white beard' or whatever 'in his image' schema represents god for us... but it's almost a given there will be something.
Why not just a feeling? Why do we have a visual? What is wrong with hearing/seeing/thinking the word 'god' and becoming filled with a sense of the universal divine? I confess this is not a question I can answer... caught personally somewhere between the two states... of 'seeing' and of 'feeling' Yes I feel that divinity in answer to the 'verbal' call of 'god' but also I'll have an image in my mind - a man, sometimes horned, sometimes not, but with a sense of presence that isn't visual, but is felt - it's hard to describe. I have a similar mixed visceral response to 'goddess' also. Female - one of four separate images, depending on which aspect of the goddess I'm trying to relate to at the time, but again, accompanied by the feeling, that sense of presence.
How was it for our ancient ancestors who saw 'fire' and felt/related to the divine in it? Or those Vestals, who knew their goddess dwelled within the flame they nurtured, and did not see Her as a separate entity from the fire? Did that bring them, or place them closer to the divine within?
And after a lifetime of living with 'images' and 'symbols' is it possible to abandon them for the simple understanding, the feeling of 'god' 'goddess' 'divine'?